Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin — A painting contains 1,000 monsters

It’s never any surprise to see a subset of gamers split in their opinions on a game. Yet, given the non-surprise of it all, you’ll see them arguing back and forth frivolously over internet message boards. This is one of the aspects that distinguish Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin from other installments in the series, and most games for that matter: the audiences giving the arguments for and against it are ostensibly evenly split, and they go toward both extremes. While one finds the game to be a worthwhile product in the franchise, the other thinks it’s an absolutely execrable product not worthy of the series’ name.

There could be two possible reasons for this. For one, you wouldn’t know from taking a glance at it, but Portrait of Ruin was released for the franchise’s 20th Anniversary. Though series producer Koji Igarashi (his nickname, IGA) said the only feature in the game that trademarks it as an anniversary title is the main character’s usage of a whip, there actually are numerous references to the older titles spread throughout the game. But it’s possible that one audience wasn’t satisfied with this because they felt it had to be the unparalleled best in the franchise, standing above even the pre-established games in the series. The second possible reason is that the game does have numerous flaws, but maybe they bother some people more than others. Of course, a third reason could be that we’re on the internet, where everyone has to hate on something regardless of its inherent qualities; but that’s another discussion.

Portrait of Ruin brings some new features to the Castlevania franchise. The game is reliant on the two main characters, Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin, working as a team to pass obstacles and defeat enemies. Here is a franchise that’s always focused on solo play, but in order to pass many parts of the game, including battles, team attacks and team techniques rule the day. This opens the door to many possibilities, like having one character attack while the other uses magical attacks at your command. Dual physical and magic attacks are also possible, which take a pretty good chunk of damage from numerous surrounding enemies and bosses; they’re powerful enough that many of them will drain half of your MP, but they’re worth it if you’re in a pinch.

If you’ve played many Castlevania games before, and owned a Sega Genesis, the name “Morris” might sound familiar. That’s because Jonathan Morris is the son of Castlevania: Bloodlines‘ protagonist John Morris. He currently wields the famed “Vampire Killer,” a whip passed between many Belmonts, and given to him by his father. He, unfortunately, lacks the ability to unlock its true power because he isn’t a direct descendant of the Belmont bloodline. Also, you wouldn’t know it by her last name, but Charlotte Aulin is a direct descendant of the Belnades line, a family that always served as assistants to the wielder of the Vampire Killer. Charlotte is also the thinker of the two, while Jonathan tends to solely rely on his strength and vigilance, often making him reckless.

Jonathan and Charlotte happen upon Dracula’s Castle in 1944, set against the backdrop of World War II. Dracula isn’t due for a revival just yet, but the two of them, especially Charlotte, sense that something is amiss within the castle. The two of them, upon exploring only around eight percent of the castle, happen upon a man named Wind. He explains to them that a mysterious villain named Brauner has taken the castle over in Dracula’s absence, and he’s established portraits that encase the castle’s power for his own nefarious purposes. No one ever said a Castlevania game’s plot had to be steeped in logic, and Portrait of Ruin’s plot certainly doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Another new feature added to this game are the aforementioned portraits. Once you come upon one in the castle, you can enter them to defeat the enemies and bosses within and collect necessary items to help you explore more of the castle. The portraits act as a glorified hub system, but it fortunately sidesteps Lament of Innocence‘s problem of being able to access the more difficult ones too early. You won’t be able to reach the later ones until you advance further in the castle.

All of the portraits contain bosses that you’ll have to deal with before you go. Not an easy feat, for the bosses in Portrait of Ruin are quite difficult. But they’re only difficult in the way that they have patterns that can be exploited before you can defeat them, but this comes at the expense of learning them first, requiring you to take heavy damage from their attacks. A little perseverance will go a long way towards defeating them, which you’ll need, because you’ll most likely die on your first try. Regular enemies won’t pose much of a challenge, though.

The portraits themselves represent one of the problems in the game, however. The first four are pretty good and well designed, but you’ll be disappointed when you realize that the last four are just extensions of those first ones. It feels as if the development team either ran out of ideas or a budget for four more areas, and decided to rehash them by designing them differently. It’s kind of like the problem Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness had, except in 2D form. Fortunately, moving on a 2D plane is faster than moving on a 3D one, making it feel like less of a grind.

Like every Castlevania game, Portrait of Ruin has sub-weapons. But this time, they come with a twist: instead of merely using them, you have the ability to power them up by obtaining SP from enemies you finish them off with. The higher the enemy’s SP, which you can tell from the secondary panel on the top screen, the more SP a sub-weapon gets. The problem here is that you won’t get to enemies that have higher SP until much later in the game. This means that if you want to power up your sub-weapons earlier in the game in order to make them completely useful, you’ll have to use them over and over and over again. This can easily become a chore, even when you want to power them up later on, because you’re bound to have collected many by then.

But there are some nice positives here. Well, kind of. The artwork still isn’t as good as the previous games, with the developers again making the decision of using anime-style artwork instead of the series’ usual Gothic-style material. It sure is better
than Dawn of Sorrow‘s art, but it still could use some improvement. It’s still good enough that it doesn’t ruin the mood of the game, which is good, because this game takes itself less seriously than Dawn.

One of the best features of the game is the music. This time, half of it is composed by Michiru Yamane, while Konami enlisted the help of semi-legendary video game music composer Yuzo Koshiro to help her with composing the other half. Portrait of Ruin easily has the best soundtrack of the portable Castlevania games, and has one of the best soundtracks to grace the series.

Portrait of Ruin is a great Castlevania game, despite a few hindrances that keep it from being the legendary title worthy of being the 20th Anniversary special. Even if it is a small step back from Dawn of Sorrow, it’s still undeniably worth 10-15 hours of your time if you enjoy Castlevania or Metroidvania titles.